robin egg
by MarginalMary
Summary: I look away as if she's indecent, as if I am witnessing her fall apart, because she is. On the inside, Matsumoto is breaking down, cracking up.


I don't own Bleach.

Enjoy.

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**collage 2: robin egg  


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_With each passing day, the dust settles, obscuring the words you will not read. You can't even put them away and out of sight—to touch them is to admit that they are real. That will never do; it's so much easier this way. So one atop another, the pile of things you pretend to have forgotten grows and grows. And I wonder sometimes, with a broken off smile, what you will do when they fill your world, tedious page after tedious page, unwanted emotion after unwanted emotion, until there is no space to put them. Will you disappear beneath these things you relentlessly deny? Will you drown in them? I swear, sometimes you look at me, wondering if I will save you when the stacks fall. Sometimes, I wonder if I will try, knowing full well that no one can. _

I don't really think that is a good idea. "No." I say _no_ to Matsumoto again. She wants me to let her leave the office early because there is a party she wants to attend. People are celebrating the end of war by imbibing copious amounts of alcohol and generally regressing to neanderthals.

The traitor-demon is dead! Hurrah!—that sort of thing. But, I don't think my vice captain should go.

She smiles down at me so wide her eyes are closed. She's gone all squinty again, and a soft chuckle falls from her lips.

But all I see is her blinded and all I hear is her lying. So, I was right; it is not a good idea.

"Oh, Taicho!" she whines, "We need to embrace! We need to lift our glasses!" She mimes her intent with a closed fist, and it falls onto my desk heavily, too heavily to be purely enthusiastic.

I look away as if she's indecent, as if I am witnessing her fall apart, because she is. On the inside, Matsumoto is breaking down, cracking up. On the outside, she more boisterous and dimmer than usual—to remind everyone that nothing is wrong.

I know her too well.

"Why don't you do something… " I trail off. Productive? Helpful? Beneficial? Selfish? I mean them all, but can't bring myself to say a single word. And really, why should I?

In conventional terms, Matsumoto's confliction is not my place. In fact, she protects me better than I am capable of protecting her. Sure, I can physically keep her alive, but I am unsure what else there is to be done, how to protect the "more" part of her. Conversely, she watches over me with keener eyes than I can focus mine on any one person. I would not have survived the war, in either the cognitive or emotional sense, without her.

So now, I complain about the paperwork.

This is safe. Because, really, the paperwork on her desk is the story of her life. At all times there are things which beg for her attention; there are _always_ dire matters begging for attention which she keeps hidden under other important things until she can no longer distinguish between them. It's all just a pile of neglected items, stashed and stained, which she is loathe to square away. And so, it makes sense that she hates my harping on about them. It also makes sense that she drowns them out with sake and the din of raised voices and lewd laughter. I understand.

But I won't be a party to it. Not anymore. Because I'm not as sick as I used to be. It's time for role reversal in this place.

Ukitake-taicho once told me, "To help another is to fix yourself first." I just nodded then, not fully comprehending. Now, I appreciate the wisdom in his words.

I used to do all the paperwork. I was a busy boy, tireless in my pursuit of control over everything in my domain because I could not control the things outside of it. However, my perfect attendance, my white mantle, and my exemplary skills could not reach Momo in time. Filling in the blank spaces in every document in the room did not fill the dissatisfied void in my life. Walking tall did not make me so.

Because, I am just a boy. And I like candy. I like soccer and my grandmother's peach cobbler. I am easily frustrated when it is humid outside. And those few times a year when I can see the sun and the moon at the same time make me homesick and much smaller than I really am. I did not accept these truths before, and I am not about to share them now; but it helps to know. Knowing that I am a just a boy helps me understand how I ended up here.

I used to be even younger than I am now. I thought with effort and circumspection I could save the world. Karin would have said I thought myself a superhero. And she would be right.

But I was definitely wrong.

Presently, with the understanding that this war was not my fault, I'm learning to forgive myself. I started by forgiving Momo. And now I'm starting to forgive Aizen, too. I am ecstatic that he is dead, but I have let go of my hate—a little.

Mostly, I pity him his ignorance. I can almost laugh now at those words he said so casually, which back then had cut me to my core. I can almost laugh both because they are so very true and because they were woefully misapplied.

Admiration _is_ the state furthest from understanding. But Aizen was not above admiration—he merely admired a faceless ideal. He admired omniscience; he coveted the divine, never stopping to consider its nature, its subjectivity.

Because who is God to a Death-god? Who is perfection to a pure soul? Who is one man to all men?

Just a man.

As I am just a man, or rather a boy becoming a man. And I hope I will be better in the future, less enamored with others and myself, open to the possibility that some things are no more and no less than out of my control. My desk, like my small world, is not a realm wholly onto myself. It existed before me and will go on without me. I will not waste my life chained to it.

Matsumoto is still leaning over my desk pouting and pressing her breasts into my ink pot. This behavior used to amuse and irritate me in equal measure. But now it makes me melancholy somehow, resentful, because she has never been so far behind me as she at this moment. She won't change.

"I think it is time for you to find a new division, Matsumoto," I say seriously. Because I mean it. Still, I say it softly because it is not for my benefit but her own.

Abruptly, her blue eyes come unglued, the stupor breaks away from her gaze. I think she is truly looking at me for the first time in months, maybe years. Her posture stiffens, and she backs away three steps before she stares down at her feet with a disjointed expression. I don't think she even knows how she got there. I don't think she can even see her feet below her large chest.

Matsumoto has a way of knowing when I am serious. Instinctively, she knows any argument she might make has been duly noted and likewise disregarded. She has already lost.

If only Matsumoto knew that she has also won, won something more valuable. "Can… I ask why?" she whispers. This time she looks up at me and attempts to resurrect her contrived smile. She fails.

_Matsumoto, you never do your paperwork._ I consider saying that, but it would be a partial lie and she deserves more. She saved my life. She saved my granny. She saved my sanity. She looked away every time I came undone but never left. Because she knew I was worth it. Even when I forgot.

I sigh and pause to silently banish the resistance clogging my throat, "You never change." _You'll never change here._

This is absolutely true, and I want her to change. To heal. Because Gin is going to die very soon, and she cannot continue to pretend it isn't really happening. Stuffing the data and time of his execution in the bottom of the bottom drawer in her seldom used desk will not make it go away.

Something of this abstraction in my head, my inner dialog, must have seeped across the floor and the infinite space between us because Matsumoto smiles with her eyes wide open. Then she turns to face the overwrought workstation where her name plate is only just visible. "I suppose I will have to do something about that if… before I leave."

This makes me smile back which I make it a point never to do. But there is no time like the present to improve myself. I nod emphatically even though she is not looking at me.

Matsumoto moves to her desk in a dream state. I guess she is remembering things about this place, which feels like it has already begun to forget her. She is probably remembering things about me and before me. That is progress.

I stand up, feeling rededicated and hopeful. I grab my haiori and start for the door. I have things to ponder out—details to consider and angles to examine. I will apprise her of all these tomorrow or the next day. I will take my time, of course.

I shake my head in wonder at my own ease.

"Hey, Taicho!" she calls. And I freeze, a gut reflex, because her tone is off. Something has surprised her, and she thinks it is very funny. There is genuine laughter in her voice, the kind I have not heard in a very long time.

I swivel, holding my breath. Matsumoto looks over at me, a placid expression on her face. She is looking at me as an equal not a child. In the realm of interpersonal banter, she has always been so annoyingly condescending. So, I am obviously wary.

And she is there behind her desk, sorting out papers into stacks, currently unsticking two less accommodating ones spotted with purple goo.

It's an alien sight, and I feel a momentary pang of fear. What have I just done? Can I do this without her? It's irrational, allowing that she never does anything remotely resembling what she is doing now, but I am afraid.

A different kind of fear, not mortal fear for myself or another, but it rings in an ancient way—something I have felt only once before: the fear of being alone.

In a far-flung corner of my mind, I see Momo walking away from our childhood home, a wooden sword over her shoulder and geta on her tiny feet. In that distant corner, I am an infant to the world again, and my only companion is running off to learn her craft, running off without me. Leaving me alone.

I come close to bowing my head and taking the last 5 minutes back. Close, but I will not yield.

"You have grown, Taicho. I think you're getting taller."

I stare at her blankly, reveling in the knowledge that the fear did not break me as it once would have.

Oh, there are tears in her robin egg eyes which she stubbornly ignores. And suddenly, I am validated, absolutely right in sending Matsumoto away, sending her on _her_ way, and the fear passes along with my earlier melancholy. She is going to get better, and I am too. Not together, perhaps, but united all the same.

"You are crying, Matsumoto." I scowl in the usual way and don't know why I point out what she will not acknowledge. I hope that she is alright with it, but I will never know.

Because I leave office as I should, perhaps to kick my soccer ball around—leaving Matsumoto to sort the paperwork and all the other things she has been ignoring because of me.

**Reversal by Toushirou Hitsugaya**

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R&R


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